W. C. Fields : his follies and fortunes (1949)

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." "Oh, God! if my brother, Ellsworth Boynton, the heavyweight wrestling champion of the world, who, if you recall, was mentioned in Act One as being expected back momentarily from London, were only here!" "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" "Help! Police! Police!" Fields often collected quite a crowd with these inadvertent scenes, and he occasionally sensed that professional-looking men, with satchels, were eying him speculatively. He felt that the time had come to return to pure juggling. Though he was relieved to be free, his situation was critical. He had started the trip with a tidy stake, the remnant of his benefit fund plus a couple of weeks' salary from Atlantic City. But he had been lending money, at usurious rates, to the manager, who was expecting a large check from New York at each stop. A business plunge of this kind was foreign to Fields' principles, and he was both financially and spiritually hurt by its failure. "The bastard offered me 50 per cent interest," he related to a friend. "It was a shabby way to treat a boy in his teens." Fields never forgot the lesson he learned in Kent. In after life nobody could borrow from him. Now and then he gave some needy person money, on the quiet, but he would not lend as much as fifty cents to his closest friend. One afternoon on the Paramount lot, William Le Baron told a number of movie actors about a once-popular star who was currently down and out. Then he took up a collection. Fields withdrew to a shady corner, sat down, and watched the proceedings with a disapproving eye. Everybody expressed sympathy and contributed generously, Maurice Chevalier and Bing Crosby handing over a hundred dol 47